


Bitten

by Sparkypip, TheGracefulBlueCat



Series: It takes John Watson to save your life works [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Doctor John Watson, Gen, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, Injured Sherlock, John is a Bit Not Good, John is a Very Good Doctor, Medical Procedures, PTSD John, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-15 21:19:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11814390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sparkypip/pseuds/Sparkypip, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGracefulBlueCat/pseuds/TheGracefulBlueCat
Summary: A continuation of the 'bitten' storyline from the series 'It takes John Watson to save your life.' By sparkypip. Written mostly by the awesome 'TheGracefulBlueCat' and collaborated together to come up with this.John does not cope too well with Sherlock's life hanging in the balance after being bitten by a venomous snake. As the detective clings to life the doctor struggles with his own demons.





	1. Chapter 1

John felt his breathing quicken, his head was light and for a second he lost his thoughts but he was brought back to reality when he heard the medic next to him speaking.

"Doxapram's done it, we got him."

John looked down to his friend and to Sherlock's quivering uneven muscle contractions, a respiratory stimulant had sent his body back into attempting to breath itself but they were awful in and exhales. The oxygen levels on the screen were wailing in response at the poor effort but there was a fresh flow of the gas in the face mask and the numbers were climbing ever so slowly.

"You need to sit down Doctor Watson." The EMT looked concerned as the ambulance took a sharp corner making John almost lose his footing. The medic pointed to the seat behind him and smiled sadly, "We're nearly there."

The doctor let himself down from his feet but he didn't release the hold from the bed, pulling Sherlock's hand into his own he studied it with an odd interest. The area around the detectives newly acquired IV cannula was blooming with a fresh dark bruise, John frowned.

"You need to run coags." He said quickly.

"We know." The medic replied, he was taking pulses and writing notes on his clipboard. "The critical care team are expecting us."

"He's bleeding out..." John's voice wavered far more than he thought it would, damn body, why was it betraying him now, what was wrong with him, "he needs a blood transfusion and vitamin K."

"It's alright." The paramedic smiled sadly. "We've got this doctor."

The doctor clasped his hand around Sherlock's wrist, allowing his fingers to rest on his radial pulse. The beat was thready, erratic and uneven and John felt his own pulse begin to rise with each bounding thud. His medical mind suddenly felt much like the detectives, running off a list of conditions associated with poor pulses. Shock - cardiogenic, distributed, hypovoleamic, obstructive. Reasons for shock - severe blood loss, heart failure and cardiac arrhythmia's, poisoning or envenomation, anaphylaxis, bacterial infection, SIRS, sepsis, drug overdose, drug reaction, extreme dehydration, cardiac tamponade, spinal trauma, thoracic trauma, head trauma, pulmonary embolism. His mind was racing like a train...

Only moments later John was jerked out of his mantra, when the ambulance suddenly stopped and the doors were slammed open with a loud clunk which jerked his attention up. Someone jumped in, pushing past John and breaking his only contact with his friend. It was such a sudden change of pace he needed a few moments before he realised he should stay out of their way.

They rushed past him, pulling Sherlock with the gurney out of the vehicle. As soon as they were out he tried to stand up to follow them, only to grab the handles inside the doors hard when his vision began to be fill with black dots.

Fighting to get himself under control, he blew out air with puffed cheeks, once, twice… three times, then his vision cleared and he hurried after the team. He never lost sight of his friend's lax form on the trolley, still unresponsive to the sudden noisy commotion.

When they parked Sherlock in the large emergency bay and the medic started to rattle off all he knew John realised there was way more he needed to inform them about. He didn't interrupt but made a few mental notes about what to address as soon as the man was finished.

The medical team listened with concentration, one man making notes, another checking the lines going in, while two nurses spread out the transportable equipment that had rested on the gurney for the short ride through to the resuscitation room. They made space for the team to work.

John stepped over to his friend, collecting his limp hand with the pulse ox clipped on his finger in situ. He squeezed it gently. "I'm here." So quiet he practically said it to himself.

The coldness brought a new bout of panic in him and he had to caution himself to remain a doctor, not slip into the pain of being a friend. Sherlock wouldn't want him to do that, he would expect a logical, medical, Doctor John Watson, not irrational worried friend.

"Alright," the lead doctor said when the paramedic to finished his short report. "I want…"

But John interrupted him."Antivenom is on the way, Inspector Lestrade is bringing it here, can somebody go to meet him and bring him to us so we don't lose time?"

"Who are you?"

Much to John's relief the medic from the ambulance stepped in then and told them to listen to him and the background of John's presence. In that moment he was suddenly shifted from a bystander to one of the treating doctors, which was good, because he needed to help, needed to do right thing so they could save Sherlock.

They had to save him.

Not doing so was not an option.

John couldn't...

Sherlock needed to survive this. He would so kick Sherlock's arse for not seeking treatment straight away, he would not live this one down that's for sure!

While he showed them the bite wound and explained how long he thought the timeline was, it suddenly felt a lot like his earlier days when he had worked in accident and emergency, well before his time in Helmand province.

This was so very different from sitting in a surgery and looking at people's warts and sending them for further examinations when he feared they might have kidney stones.

This was a battle. A fight for life and limb, and since Afghanistan he hadn't worked in the centre of a resuscitation area at full throttle. Organised chaos was it's best description.

Words flew through the room, barked orders and note taking, people ran around, fetching supplies and wheeling in machines, starting more monitors, taking blood, shoving more catheters and lines into his friend's body.

Then Sherlock moaned and all professionalism flew out the window in a second.

John's focus was shifted.

Noises around him seemed to vanish, the people disappeared, and all he focussed on was Sherlock's grimacing face. Sweaty and with clear visible lines of pain carved into his ghostly white features, his eyes opened, but barely so.

"Thank god, there you are."

"John." Sherlock's voice was much higher than normal, the word more a whimper than anything else. His body gave a shudder.

"Antivenom will be here any minute, hang on."

But the awareness only lasted a moment, and Sherlock was out again, unconscious to the madness going on around him. The battle the medical team were fighting, against the overwhelming shock and organ failure the detectives body was quickly succumbing to.

John felt his legs go weak and his hands trembled with the thought of it. With a bout of annoyance he gritted his teeth so hard they ground together when realised he might actually be in shock too.

Lestrade should be here by now, what was keeping him?

When he turned towards the large double doors of resus to check if someone was there he shifted his weight to his 'bad' leg and gasped silently. A jolt of pain went up from his knee into his hip and then up his spine like an electric shock.

"Shit." Not now!

He clenched his teeth even tighter and audibly hissed in frustration.

Slowly, John's senses allowed him to return to what was happening around him, he was able to focus again on someone reading out lab results, it was that coagulation profile, and it didn't sound good. The consultant started ordering people around and John could see two bags of fresh blood units being handed to one of the nurses to begin infusion.

He was trying to focus and read the monitors, but the numbers were fuzzy momentarily. No changes were good, stable readings were good right? Not the readings themselves but the fact that they were not changing was something. He was clutching at straws now, oh God, his mind was babbling. Focus Watson!

He felt of kilter and took a lot of effort to stand upright John realised. But before he could think about sitting down the large doors swung open and a very stressed looking Lestrade entered, a cooler bag in his hand, trailing behind a breathless security guard.

John was so relieved that he felt his legs become even weaker, his knees wobbled.

The inspector spotted him immediately, "John! How is he? What's happening?"

The former army doctor saw Greg's gaze wander over Sherlock's lifeless form, all the medical lines and then come to rest on the horribly swollen and blistering area where the detective had been bitten.

It really looked nasty and John saw the DI pale at the sight of it.

"Antivenom?"

"Right here," he held the bag up and a doctor quickly relieved him of it. "Though, I am not sure which one is right. He labelled it meticulously but…. I mean, should we trust it?"

"A man like that wouldn't risk his life by mislabelling antivenom, would he?" John asked and started to move around the gurney to meet Greg and the lead physician.

But when he had reached the foot end of it, he suddenly started to feel very faint. He gripped a nearby kit trolley firmly and stopped dead. He was afraid that his legs might not be able to hold him upright if he took one more step. His knees were wobbly and weak again, was this really happening?

"John?" Lestrade's voice and face was filled with concern. Did he really look that bad?

"Fine…" John raised his free hand but held fast with the other, knuckles turning white as his grip tightened.

Then suddenly the instrument trolley moved towards him and…

… He was falling.

"Fuck! John?"

The impact with the floor was hard and metal things clattered to the ground around him, he wasn't aware he moaned in pain, only of the fact that his vision was filled with a growing number of black patches.

He fought it.

"John?"

Desperately.

"John mate, stay with us yeah?"

But his body had none of it and he lost the fight only a second later. Darkness burrowed into his consciousness in a merciless swoop attack and he was out cold


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John wakes to find that perhaps staying in oblivion would have been kinder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time coming, so sorry. I'm still here. Thanks again for the amazing gracefulbluecat for making this happen! : )

Before John even had regained consciousness the thought that Sherlock might actually be dead seeped into his awareness.

This was certainly not a new phenomenon. Back in the days right after Sherlock had jumped off the roof of St Bart's John had suffered from deep depression and this had happened several times a day. The stained crimson pavement etched into his vision even when he opened his eyes to the darkened room. Grief and desperation and the bitter truth had followed him into a half aware state after, greeting his woken state when returned to it, cutting short his sleep.

It was as if the sorrow crept into every pore of his existence, not even oblivion being fully free of the horrors that lurked in reality.

Back then this usually resulted in him waking up crying silently, in a light sweat and his heart thundering in his chest. This time it was no different, the distress reached into his sleep and dragged him out - brutally.

He was on his side, curled in on himself, his heaving breaths were causing air movement on the back of his hand. An annoying beeping reached his ears and synchronised with the thudding pulse there.

Sherlock!

He tried to push himself up before he was even aware of his surroundings.

The only thing he knew was his best friend was closer to death than life right now and it was fucking serious. He needed to find him, dead or alive; he would not be fooled this time into thinking the detective was gone without proof, he needed to see a body. He needed to see his friend, right now.

"Stay down, mate," a voice said close by, much too close. There were hands on his upper arm and by his hairline, pinning him down, but not with real force. The gesture was also too intimate, no nurse or doctor would ever do this. His brows furrowed and he shrunk back a little, hands pulling into his face.

"Hey... John, hey! Open your eyes for me!"

With a grunt of discontent he forced his oddly heavy lids to lift and simultaneously realised it was Greg Lestrade.

Right.

Everything flooded back into his awareness then.

Sherlock, snakebite.

The DI had arrived with antivenom.

Where was Sherlock and was he even still alive and breathing?

His own breaths gave a hitching increase in rate.

Greg recognised his impending panic in a moment, "Calm down. He's alive… He's been given the serum, he stable and no worse."

The inspector chose to leave out the part that Sherlock was now in a coma, selecting his words mindfully.

John was glad Lestrade wasn't wasting time on unneeded information as any nurse or doctor would have done.

Not dead, then.

The relief John felt left his mind tail spinning for a few moments, and he probably lost contact to the real world from the roller coaster of feelings attacking him. The rush of adrenaline and dopamine hit his body simultaneously and his vision went white for what was a good few minutes.

The horror of it all remained though, since the DI's words didn't really sound optimistic, careful to only state facts.

"John?"

A thumb was rubbed over the muscles of his outer forearm and the hand on his head disappeared.

He felt way too weak and shaky to get up, which was probably why Lestrade had gently held him in place. He would have likely taken a nosedive immediately if allowed to attempt movement.

The memories of his collapse came back to him and the anxiety followed only a step behind. Could his heart rate hasten anymore?

The annoying beeping increased again. He realised a snug pulse oxymeter clip was on his finger, the probe was apparently both imposing and uncomfortable and he snatched it off.

"Hey, look at me," Greg urged carefully.

John squeezed his eyes shut when suddenly his insides seemed to contort in vicious cramps. Instinctively, he moved out of the recovery position and curled around his belly with a silent groan. He tried not to grimace but was aware he failed miserably.

"That's it, I'm calling for a doctor."

John couldn't care less. He had all the information he needed and right now he was of no use to Sherlock. The man was probably unconscious and John doubted he himself would be able to even get up let alone begin to take in the state of his best friend's current health.

At least he was alone now. Greg had apparently gone in search of a medical professional and he hoped it would stay that way. He needed a minute to get his roiling stomach under control, he was a doctor, he didn't need another qualified to tell him what was wrong with him.

His insides seemed to have liquefied and now started to make ominous gurgling noises, and only a moment later he felt nausea hit full force. He swallowed hard to try to ease the feeling. He would not puke.

Nope, not now.

Once more he fought his body desperately to get the overwhelming sensations under control. He sucked in long deep breaths in an attempt at reducing the sick feeling rising in his stomach.

It seemed the horror of seeing Sherlock this close to death, desperate and crying, had hit him so hard he had been swept off his feet by a class A breakdown. He must have cried himself at some point because his throat and nasal cavities felt clogged and his eyes swollen. The grainy texture of dried tears was evident on his cheeks, still slightly damp in places. But he couldn't remember a thing.

God, he hoped Lestrade hadn't seen it.

On the other hand, he had seen him a wreck after Sherlock's faked suicide, and Greg was not a person who hadn't seen any aspect of human emotion. In his line of work one saw it all, perhaps even more than a doctor who had been to war, John thought.

With pure will he forced himself not to retch but it resulted in even more vicious cramps. This time he let out an audible noise.

"No."

He inhaled sharply, grasping the side bars of the bed he now realised he was on.

How had he got onto one of the hospital gurneys?

His body convulsed, it wanted to rid of whatever was in his stomach, it was making that painfully clear, bile was rising in the back of his throat.

"Dr Watson?" An unfamiliar voice.

"John?"

Someone was tapping his shoulders and the input was almost too much, it felt as if his insides were about to be ripped apart.

A pathetic groan left his mouth, nothing else luckily.

"Can I examine you?"

It was a rhetorical question, John knew, but he shook his head, clamping his jaw together in an effort to stop the threatening nausea.

"He's about to vomit," the female voice uttered and he heard things were being moved somewhere.

"What? How do you know?"

"Believe me, I know."

"No!" John hissed through his teeth.

"Relax, it's gonna be alright. We'll take good care of you. You had a bit of a spell but it's going to be alright Doctor Watson. Your friend is okay."

"How is he?" John gritted out, refusing to unclench his jaw in case.

"His vitals have stabilised and we are being hopeful," her voice held no emotion and John could not read it, for all he knew she was lying.

She came closer again and he felt something was shoved not too gently under his chin, likely a cardboard emesis bowl.

With short hasty breaths he tensed to contain some additional inner pressure. He felt like everything was pressing hard to get out, as if he was about to explode from the need to scream, the need to cry and the need to spew.

On the other side he felt so extremely exhausted he couldn't think straight, even his bones were tired, limbs heavy and useless. He had woken weak and trembling.

It probably was only a matter of time until he'd succumb to this. He was a worthless mess right now and it felt horrible.

He was a soldier, for God's sake, he had been through worse.

He had fought for days without a break, not only in the field, but also on more operating tables than he could count.

He should get a grip!

He would not puke! He would not be this pathetic.

"John, can you look at us?" her voice again.

"Get out," he grunted, wanting to be left alone in his mortification and pain.

"Sorry, can't do that. I need to take your vitals."

The pulse ox was attached to his right middle finger once more, the intolerable beeping began again. The noise seemed to intensify the nausea far worse.

Every beat like an earthquake.

But when she slipped the blood pressure cuff up his arm and it began to compress his brachial artery it was almost unbearable, he decided to just to try and ignore it.

"Can you tell me if you're experiencing any pain?"

For a moment he considered lying but he had seen that in too many soldiers and it done them no good – besides that he had used his best captain-voice on them to make it very clear he did not approve.

"Head, leg, hurts… everything to be honest," he exhaled carefully in the hope he'd keep himself under control - at least until she had finished her exam.

"Alright."

"I need some space, I have PTSD. Would you two just leave me alone for a minute?" he suddenly burst out, before he was even aware what was happening. He had never readily admitted this before and his own behaviour shocked him, made him feel even more wretched.

John started to try to lift his torso up on shaking arms once more.

If it was inevitable he was grimly determined to at least not puke on himself and not while people were watching.

The tension in his abdomen was growing by the minute. Part of him was surprised that it was still increasable, on the other hand his vision was now distorted by the intense pain.

"Hey, stop that."

Hands returned and tried to keep him from moving gently, more holding him than restraining him now.

"Dr Watson? If your body wants to get rid of it, don't fight it. It will do you no good, just let it go," she said empathetically.

He managed to shake his head halfway and then his body suddenly started to convulse and with a violence he hadn't experienced before. His body was clearly dead set on expelling whatever was in his stomach. He couldn't even remember when he had last eaten.

Then he expelled whatever was there.

He retched and it seemed to take ages. All he was able to feel were the agonising cramps as his abdomen heaved violently.

The ugliness of the whole scenario almost made him want to vomit more.

At some point he realised he was being held upright, hands steadying around his shoulders and a larger bowl was held in front of his face but by now he felt way to miserable to care anymore.

After what felt like a very very long time the dry heaving finally stopped and someone gently tilted his head back.

Utterly spent he didn't care about much else any longer.

When a paper towel appeared in his hand he wiped his mouth with shaking hands. And then a blessedly cool towel started to wipe his brow and his face, he was only grateful for the small comfort.

"Do you think you are finished for now?" the nurse asked and he blinked up at her.

She was a forty something blonde whose face showed experience and too many extra hours. This was the first time he looked at her, then he nodded weakly.

A bit ashamed he realised it was not his own trembling arm that was holding his torso up, the reason he was no longer lying flat were strong arms he was leaning on heavily. Greg carried almost his whole weight.

"I think you need to lie back down, John," the DI muttered from behind him. John wondered why he hadn't left this to the nurses to deal with.

They helped him slowly back and lifted the head of the bed so that he was now propped up slightly against a couple of pillows.

"How do you feel?" Greg then asked.

"Like shit." His voice was hoarse, "Can you try to get some news on Sherlock… please?"

"Sure," his friend was out of the door moments later and John looked after him, embarrassed and dizzy.

"You still feel sick?" the nurse asked and then John's eyes finally saw her nametag, Jenny Whitaker, senior charge nurse.

He nodded once more, though it was not as bad as before.

"OK. Let's give you an antiemetic. Think you can handle an ondansetron strip or would you opt for an injection?"

"Film strip," John huffed, hoping he could actually do it. His mouth felt so dry and disgusting he didn't want to swallow anything.

"Rinse and spit first," she held out two cups, one empty and one containing a bluish liquid.

Gladly, he did as told - twice - and a few minutes later she had changed her gloves and unpeeled the medication from its packaging.

"Open up."

She placed the small strip on his tongue and told him to just let it rest there until it was gone.

"Here's the call button," she placed the device on the gurney next to him. "I'll be back in a minute, try to relax a bit, would you?"

When she bustled out of the room, he exhaled and closed his eyes, letting his head fall back.

Feeling vulnerable and abject, he lifted his knees up, which were still covered from a thin white hospital issue blanket.

He just noticed it for the first time and this fact left him disoriented and lost. Not being aware of what had happened and how much time had passed was unsettling.

He was cold, his coat was gone somewhere and he was left in his light shirt which offered him little warmth. He hated that Sherlock was no doubt a lot worse than him and that he was here needing care because he couldn't handle it.

The thought is his friend's sent a new wave of desperation through him, threatening to break to the surface in the form of a constricting ball in his throat. He feared he might be about to tear up again. He pinched the bridge of his nose to keep it in and inhaled slowly, thankfully the heart rate on the monitor had slowed somewhat.

This was enough of a breakdown for one day. Sherlock needed him, for god's sake!

He needed to pull himself together.

Carefully, he concentrated on calming his breathing and consciously relaxing all his muscles from head to toe, like he had learned in rehab training after Afghanistan. It was perhaps one thing he had taken away from the endless hours of therapy which actually helped.

The words of one of the therapists came back to him, who had told him not to get worked up because his emotions were closer to the surface, and that this was not uncommon for patients who suffered PTSD. A long talk had followed, its main topics were why this was not something to be ashamed of and that it was okay even for battle-hardened soldiers to be afraid or to cry now and then.

While doing the exercise he wondered if during the past hours of stress, the emotions from the day Sherlock had jumped off the roof had mixed in with the current events.

It certainly wouldn't have helped or maybe it was just the same kind of existential angst that had befallen him, his friend being so close to death. The similarities were undeniable and unthinkable.

He was scared shitless. Seeing it all go south in slow motion, unable to do anything, knowing that this might actually be it, the end of the Great Sherlock Holmes.

"John?"

His eyes jerked open. He hadn't heard Greg come back in, who was tapping his raised knee.

Once John's eyes met the other man's, Lestrade sat down on the edge of the hospital bed. His heart leapt with worry and he tried to control it.

"He's stable, vitals improved slightly, still unconscious of course, swelling no worse though it's dressed now by the looks of if. He's far from being out of the woods but they're optimistic." Again Greg refused to utter the word coma to the doctor, he would have to play this carefully, with John's emotional state sitting on a knife edge he feared that any bad news would tip him back into oblivion. Also he wouldn't tell John that he and the hospital staff had decided that he should be present when John woke, so that he'd see a familiar face, because of the PTSD. And that only one experienced nurse should be with them, who was able to deal with whatever issues might surface, to avoid any further stress for the former army surgeon.

An exhale of relief left John and he lay back, staring at the ceiling lights blinking.

"I'll get you another one of those cool towels, you look like you need it."

John closed his eyes again, trying to calm his wildly beating heart once more, the excitement was getting too much again.

Why was his body being so useless to him right now?

Some time later a cold cloth appeared on his hot forehead and he hummed with content about the presence of this minuscule luxury.

When he started drifting a bit later he was aware that Greg sat on the end of his bed. He had started talking to him in a voice so low John couldn't understand.

Now and then the DI refreshed the towel.

But finally, after only a few minutes, exhaustion dragged him into a deep but fitful sleep.


End file.
